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VMware - Virtual Machine Migration

A company that we bought is running ESX 3.5 and we are running ESXi 5.0. They have one virtual server that I want to migrate to our environment because it's running some old ERP software that we are going to need for historical purposes. It's not supported anymore I don't know where the install for it would be anyway so I think just keeping that server is going to be easiest.

What is the best way to go about this? These are on different domains.

Thanks and let me know if you need more info.

Abhilash

Are these servers connected to same storage? Or can you connect a shared storage across this hosts so you can migrate them? What license do you own?
Is cold migration(Powered off) an option?

If they are in different domains, you can always join the machine to new domain. Would you be aware if that will affect the application running on it?
If you are and it does not change anything you can add it to new domain after migration.

Winsoup

ASKER

No, we are running a DS4700 SAN. They just have their VM's on the hosts local storage.
I'm not going to be able to change domains or the access to the application will be interrupted. Maybe I should've said clone instead of migration.
Ideally I'd like to be able to get this on our domain and they could run at the same time until I'm sure that I have it working in the new environment. Then I will just shut down the current VM.

We have vSphere 5 Eenterprise and vCenter Server 5 Standard licenses.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

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Winsoup

ASKER

Andrew,

I ran the converter tool and it looks like it starts moving to the new environment, but then after a few seconds it deletes the machine again. The converter fails with this message:

"General system error occurred: unknown internal error”

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

We need to start at the beginning with fault finding.

What is the OS?

Did you install Converter on the VM ?

Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)

Also you could Power Off the VM and Export the VM and then Import OVF in ESXi 5.x

gheist

Attach any NFS storage to both environments
Shut down their machine and move it to NFS
Remove from inventory in old ESXi
Add vmx file to inventory from network storage

tadaa

Winsoup

ASKER

This worked. I just had a DNS issue that was causing the error.
After adding these to the host file I was successfully able to run the converter.